The Key To Answered Prayer - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, October twenty-eighth. Prayer can change us, our neighbors, and even our world.

But how much time are you investing in this powerful privilege? Here's part two of The Key to Answered Prayer. God made you and me for Himself. He made us to fellowship with Him. That's why He saved us. He said, He saved me because He died for me. He saved you because He loves you. And His death on the cross was the means by which He brought about the forgiveness of your sins.

He loves you. He wants to answer your prayers if you're willing to ask Him. There is a passage of Scripture in the Sermon on the Mount.

Probably most of us are quoted at some time in our life. And so, I want you to turn, if you will, to the seventh chapter of Matthew. And I want us to look, if you will, at this one particular passage in the seventh verse. And what I want you to realize is this, God desires to answer your prayer. So all these hesitations you have and wondering about, does God care? Does He love me? Is He listening?

The answer is yes, yes, yes. Yes He does care. Yes, He does love you. And so, I want you to listen and read along with me in this passage beginning in verse seven of this seventh chapter. He says, Ask and it will be given to you.

Seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for love, will they give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him? So now, look at that verse. He says, if you and I ask and seek and knock, He's going to answer our petitions. Now, if I said to you, well, do you really and truly believe that's what He'll do?

Some of you would say, well, in my life, no. But I want you to listen carefully to this. In all the things that Jesus said about prayer, and He said many things, disciples on one occasion said, teach us to pray like John has taught his disciples to pray. So, He said many things about prayer.

And so, why? Because it is the will of the Father, the desire of the Father, and the design of the Father to answer our petitions. And so, when we come to say what's the key then to answering prayer, there are two things.

The first one is this. If I really and truly want God to answer my prayer, I must learn to persevere. I must learn to persevere.

I must learn to persevere, and I must learn to persevere, and I must learn to persevere. And so, if I'm just praying and forgetting it and moving on, that's not going to get it. One of the primary reasons people don't get their prayers answered is they start and then they stop. If it doesn't happen today or tomorrow or next week at the latest, then I'm not going to pray anymore because God must not be interested in answering my prayer. He's very interested in answering your prayer. I keep praying because I know that my Father wants the best for me.

I know He's provided the best. I know He is going to give me the best. And therefore, I must keep praying while God is working on me of a circumstance in order to get me ready for His best.

You don't give up and quit because you don't get what you're looking for when you're looking for it. So, we're to persevere in prayer because our Heavenly Father, who loves us unconditionally, who wants to meet our needs, and even our desires, who desires to give us good things, that's what Jesus said, because that's who He is. And as I talk to Him and get to know Him, here's what'll happen, the more you get to know Him, the less things you will ask for.

And you know what else will happen? The more things He'll give you, the more things He'll give you, for the simple reason He wants us to talk to Him and fellowship with Him, not because we always want something, but just because we love Him. So I'd ask you this question, when is the last time you just sat, knelt, or lay down, whatever it might be, and said, Lord, I really and truly do want to get to know You.

I don't want You to give me anything today or tonight. I just want to get to know You. I would love to hear You speak to me. I would love to hear what You want to say to me.

Help me to understand what You're saying. He's so willing. For example, I awakened this morning out of dead sleep and God brought to my mind, spoke to me something very clearly that I needed to deal with that I had thought about before, but I just let it aside and thought, well, that'll get done somehow.

It needs to be dealt with tomorrow morning. He's willing. And when people say, well, God's never spoken to me, let's put it this way, He tried and He'll keep trying. Because listen, more important to God than giving you this, that, and the other, some of which you can manipulate and get yourself, He wants you to receive it as from Him.

He wants you to know that He loves you enough that He's the one who provides it. And everything that comes our way that's good for us comes from Him. So first of all, if I'm really going to get answers to prayer, I've got to persevere. I don't give up and quit because it's tough because there's a delay, because I'm going to talk about the delay right now.

There's a reason. So that's the first key. The second one is this, and that is confidence. That is confidence that He's going to answer my prayer. If I don't have any confidence, what I'm saying is I'm asking, but I don't really believe it. And you know when you pray whether you have confidence in God or not that He's going to hear and answer your prayer.

You know whether you do or not. Because the more confidence you have, listen, the stronger you'll pray. The more confidence you have, the longer you'll pray. The more confidence you have, the more you'll pray. The more confidence you have, the more effective is going to be your prayer.

In other words, something happens when we begin to pray in that fashion. And so, I want us to look at this passage and listen to how He said it, because He said this in order to strengthen our confidence. Look, He said now, I'm saying ask, seek, and knock.

Now, if you'll notice again the passage we read a while ago. What man is there among you when his son asks for a loaf? Will they give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a snake, will he, more than likely that was an eel out of the water there. He said, would he do that?

None of us would treat our children that way. So, He says, if you then being evil, being a sinner, know how to give good gifts to your children, now here's the key word, how much more, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him? Now, think about this, here's what Jesus said. He couldn't have said it any clearer, any more convincing. He said, if you then being a sinner, with all of our faults and frailties and weaknesses, if you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him? You know what we're doing? When we're saying that we don't believe He'll answer our primary needs, we're saying, you know what?

I got one on Him. If my son or my daughter, if they had a need, I'd meet it. But I'm implying and I'm saying, but you know God, He just ignores us and He, in other words, are we better than God?

No. If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give what is good to those who ask Him? Now, what about this good business? So, twice He mentions that. So, here's what He says, whatever you're asking for, whatever the heavenly Father gives you is something good.

Now, watch this. It's good from the perspective and from the judgment of a perfect God who knows you perfectly. Every cell of your body, He knows you perfectly. So, therefore, what God gives is good.

It's good for us. If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give what is good to those who ask Him? He couldn't have made it any simpler. He couldn't have made it any clearer. And He couldn't have made it any more convincing.

What an illustration. A father picking up a stone around a lake and giving himself, there, eat that. He says, if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him?

You say, well, I know that's true, but you know what? I've been talking to Him about all this and I'm waiting for God to answer my prayer because up until this time, I just don't feel like He has. But what's the message of what He's saying? The message is this, that a loving, perfect, heavenly Father gives to His children who are imperfect and who are sinners. He gives to us good things because He loves us. It says something about His concern for us. It says something about His caring for us.

It says something about His intimate knowledge of you. Nobody knows you like God. Nobody knows us like Him. Nobody knows our needs, our hurts, our pains, our feelings. Nobody knows our weaknesses, our frailties like He.

So, what happens? He says, you can trust Me. I'm going to give you exactly what you need, a good gift. Now, there are times when people pray and they want what they want, whether God agrees or not. You will never equal what God has in store for you. This is your heavenly Father doing what? Providing for you. So, you say, well, now, what about this business of waiting?

What am I supposed to do? Just what He said. You'll remember, for example, when Mary and Martha called Jesus or sent somebody as a message and said, Lazarus, whom you love, is sickened to death. Well, what was Jesus' answer? Silence. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. You've eaten at our home. We've cooked for you and your disciples. Now, He's at the point of death.

We need you. Silence. Well, then you got the feelings hurt.

When they met Him, they said, if you'd have been here, you'd have been here. Was that a good answer? Is silence a good answer? When you ask God for something and He's just silent, is that a good answer? He says He only gives good.

So, you have to ask this question. Was it good for Jesus to show up and heal Him? Yes. Was it better for God to let Him die and raise Him from the dead? And two thousand years later, we're still talking about Lazarus. Still talking about Jesus raising Him from the dead. Listen, He blessed a lot of other people and met a lot of other people's needs. Their name's not in the Bible. Would Mary and Martha say, oh, it would have been better if you'd just been here and healed Him? No.

Because listen, not only did it affect Mary and Martha, it affected everybody everywhere that heard about it. Watch this. Jesus' silence in your life and mine is always good and always for a purpose. Always. That His silence is not going to last forever, but He's silent for a time. And sometimes we miss God's best blessings because we've got to move ahead. In other words, if you don't do it now, then let's just forget it.

And I could think of a lot of examples, but let me give you a very material example that you can identify with. A number of years ago I had a wreck. Somebody hit me from behind, knocked me thirty-five feet down the street.

And this is the strangest thing. I can still remember it. I'm in the ambulance going to the hospital, didn't hurt me much. The only thing God said to me was, don't buy a car. Now, I had no interest in buying one when I'm hurting. That's the only thing I heard God say to me.

I can, I know exactly where I was. I thought, I don't know what I thought except that I wasn't interested, but I knew He said it. So, time went by and both my kids wanted to know when I was going to get one because everybody in the family had one and now we've got four and only three cars. I said, I'm sure God will show me where. So, time went by and I didn't have one and so one of our deacons let me have one of his cars. I drove that thing and one day when the college, couple of college students said to me, Dr. Stanley, when are you going to buy you a car?

I said, I don't know whenever God lets me do it. Now, I needed a car and I wanted one. And so, finally after waiting that long, I said, okay God, I know You said don't buy one, but I'm embarrassed driving this thing.

So, I go to this particular dealer and I thought, well, this is moderate and they won't be too pretentious and so forth. So, I said, let me drive this. So, I drove it three times. I drove it one time and I thought, well, that's pretty good. And I drove it a second time. I'm sitting in that car, I can still see the dashboard today because God just photographed it in my mind.

I'm looking at it and I'm sitting there thinking, well, I guess this is probably what I ought to do. It's like God said to me crystal clear, do you, I will never forget this, do you want this or do you want my best? He couldn't have said it any clearer than that. I opened the door, got out, closed the door, and so the salesman came and he said, what do you think? I said, sir, I don't think you'd understand what I'm thinking. I walked away with no hope of anything. I just thought, okay God.

I think it was the next week, if I'm not mistaken, it could have been two weeks. I went with one of our church members to a meeting. I didn't know him all that well, but he wanted me to go to this meeting. And so, we were driving down the street and he said, when are you going to get you a car?

I thought, oh goodness, again. I said, well, I don't know, God just hadn't given me the privilege to buy one yet for some reason. He said, well, what would you buy if you could get anything you wanted?

God is my witness. I didn't even think, out of my mouth came one just like this, which I would never have asked for. Three days later, I had a check to buy one just like his. Now, I could have, I could have put out several thousand dollars, I don't have to tell you how much cars cost. I could have done that and disobeyed God, and then probably thought about it and thought, Lord, I disobeyed You. That car would never have run right.

I don't care what happened, because it was disobedience. Or, I could drive a fine automobile that I had nothing to do with, and God said, don't buy a car that is, don't start pleading with me, just trust me. And I trust Him for a number of months. It wasn't very convenient. And so, I was embarrassed sometimes.

But you know what? God had the best, but I had to wait. When I thought, why not buy a car that was worth it? I thought, well, I'm going to buy a car that was worth it. I'm going to buy a car that was worth it. I'm going to buy a car that was worth it.

And I thought, well, I'm going to buy a car. God, He never said, well, here's what I'm going to do, dead silence for months. What I'm saying to you is this, don't try to second-guess God.

When He answers you with silence, remember this, He's working. He's got something better than you could have dreamed. He's got something better than you could have dreamed. He's got something better than you could have dreamed.

He's got something better than you could have dreamed. And I'm saying to you, God's not prejudiced. He will answer the needs of your life as well as He will. Sometimes people say, well, you're the preacher. Listen, that has nothing to do with it.

The only thing it has to do with it is obeying God. If you will trust Him, don't try to force His hand and say, well, if you loved me, you'd have given me this and given me that and given me the other. I've met a lot of people during the years who have to come back and say, I can hear them now if I'd have just waited. If I'd have just waited.

That passage is so simple. Here's what He says. If you'll do good things for your children, you haven't seen anything yet. If you'll wait for Me and trust Me and keep praying. You may have to keep praying and keep waiting, but you keep praying and you keep waiting. Watch what I do.

You'll never be disappointed. Thank you for listening to part two of The Key to Answered Prayer. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.